White Supremacy has lurked in the dark corners of my life. It has tried endlessly to make me believe that it is ok for people to assume I am unintelligent, incapable, and unworthy. Growing up, (white) teachers assumed I was stupid until I proved myself otherwise. I was the only student of color. Clients don’t think I am in charge of my company in the presence of any white, male colleague.
I’m done giving my energy to the damning lie that has murdered my ancestors, stolen generations of Black dreams, self-confidence, and self-esteem. Its existence was designed to keep my people economically and ideologically subjugated. This lie compels people to code switch, chemically straighten their hair, submit to a gender binary and covers myriad truths of personal identity in order to gain acceptance, feign conformity, find employment, and even — attract love. This must stop.
Words have power. Because of this power, I propose we continue the work of dismantling (the delusion of) white supremacy by revoking the power of the nomenclature itself. By lifting up the illusory nature of the construct, we extract some of its potency with each utterance. To put this more simply, I will not talk about white supremacy without the word “delusion” preceding it. The delusion of white supremacy has plagued our planet and provided the foundation for global systemic oppression. The lie that white people were ever inherently better than anyone else was the justification for eras long nightmares and intergenerational terror and slaughter — followed, of course, by its contemporary legacy of insidious and pervasive racism. I choose the past tense because the very act of acknowledging the delusion of white supremacy at any point in history without prefacing the term with “delusion”, names the construct as if it were true. Say it with me: the delusion of white supremacy. Claim the power and own it. Take the power back from the idea that a superior race exists. There is no racial superiority. Everyone has been bamboozled.
“But slavery was hundreds of years ago.” Yes, friends, it was. Unfortunately, the delusion of white supremacy instigated the most successful marketing campaign in the history of the world. The campaign to divide the human race into many hierarchical races. People believed, and some still believe– that race is real. People think that…
